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Restless…when darkness has a way of creeping in…

I moved

and I cried.

I screamed

and I died.

And I wanted to kill it,

to run away

and abandon it,

to move it out of my way.

 

And desperate I stared

at the dark side of dawn

and no longer cared

if it would die or be born

 

 

The above poem forms part of the prologue of my yet unpublished work “The Dark Side of Dawn”. It is sad and dark; restless and almost desperate. For some reason, it reflects how I feel today, after watching the natural terrifying events in Japan: From the earthquake of unbelievable magnitude to the morbid fascination of the tsunami and the consequences of the aftermath, which can be followed by something worse and more sinister, like the possible meltdown of the nuclear reactor or the horrendous fire at the oil refinery!

The darkness of life makes one want to escape and where can one find escapism but in the beauty of art? From the words in a fiction story or a poem to the music and the singing in a magnificent opera, escapism has many formats and appearances. It should never be snubbed! Art, in whichever format, as a form of escapism is as important as Art as a form of social criticism or of denouncing wrong doings. Escaping through art is as exhilarating as the experience of freedom for the first time and far healthier than a powerful drug. Escape to music! Take refuge in a book! Indulge your eyes in a beautiful painting or a delicate sculpture! Emerge your mind in an animated fantasy film! They are all wonderfully effective!

I escape to the world of my fictional stories where I can manipulate words, events, happiness…thus eluding the suffering and the sadness of life!